Identity of New Zealand man who ‘deliberately infected partners with HIV’ revealed

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Excellent move, revealing his name in the media. I hope they have published a picture too, so that people he infected may recognised him and get tested. There are dozens of people like this man out there in the gay AND straight community, deliberately passing the virus on as an act of selfishness and malice towards others.

Deliberately passing it on is a heinous offence, but nowhere as bad as the idiots that trusted him. As the man said, one is responsible for one’s own health. It’s not like he raped them. Go with the principle that every man you sleep with is +HIV and you can’t go easily wrong.

Both parties have to share blame, but ultimately it is the positive individual who is morally indefensible. If you are negative you simply cannot assume that your partner is negative merely because he says he is, and how can you be sure that he even knows for sure? On the other hand, anyone who has HIV who knowingly has unsafe sex under any circumstances is the one holding the gun and playing Russian Roulette at the expense of the other participant and deserves to be named and shamed. As Larry Kramer said in his keynote 2004 speech, such behaviour is tantamount to attempted murder if the victim discovers he has AIDS too late to start medication.

The homosexual community increases the chances that HIV will have been spread into the heterosexual community, the sufferers increase the chances that HIV will have been spread into the healthy community. Blame blame blame. Be scared. Be scared. Be scared. People must also be made aware of the potencial paranoia HIV can bring. If there’s a proven and real intention in passing the virus, someone can be possibly prosecuted, and treated, and we should never criminalise or push HIV sufferers to a corner.

Bob: I understand your concern, but I personally feel that fear and paranoia is the only way to convince people. In the early days I, like many others, saw friends drop like flies, and it put the fear of God into people. HIV/AIDS incidence fell rapidly. Since then it has become treatable and acceptable, and many have become complacent to the point of total carelessness. It’s only when a real threat shows itself again that people will be scared into being careful again.

RobN, there are things called “education”, “reality” and “responsibility”. And they must apply to all. One can fear being exposed to the illness, but the paranoia being created around this issue and the criminalization of sufferers should not be happening. This is like brushing the problem under the carpet once again, back to early 80s, and you should research a little better, history shows this paranoia and “fear of God” has no impact on prevention whatsoever. It only marginalizes the real information people should be learning and taking responsibility for. Get real information, not scaremongering pieces of news.

This story has nothing to do with criminalizing a sufferer. Has to do with someone intentionally and knowingly infecting others.
No matter what, you will always find someone so naïve to trust a good chatter. The better and nicer the words, the easier. With patience and time the rocks softens into sand. Add some sort of physical appeal and you are done.
There is no excuse to do unprotected sex, no matter how extensive is what you can consider the knowledge about the other person. The unthinkable happens, that’s how many candid people got caught and infected. Only rely on the one who never waiver about using condoms and only as long as he/she does so.
Trust on the tests. And they are only useful for short periods of time. Life sucks sometimes, and takes a long time to know someone for real.

Lexxvs, it always takes two to tango. It’s almost impossible to prove if someone is infecting others intentionally. The key words are “infecting intentionally” or “being infected intentionally”. The intention is what makes this situation unique. Following this approach it would also be appropriate and necessary to try and individuate the persons who are intentionally trying to get infected for whatever reason. If someone is naive enough to want to infect others or get infected by others they should be treated in the same way. But then, we should be asking ourselves why are we criminalizing an already stigmatized illness, when other illnesses can be equally if not more so infectious? The only reason is because HIV is still stigmatized and there’s widespread paranoia around this issue. Nothing to do with reality, science or even justice. And the only ones being pointed fingers are the sufferers. I see no one pointing fingers or trying to criminalize the so called “naive” and “possible victim” types who drop precautions as soon as they like the “good chatter” in front of them. So in practice what’s being done is the criminalization of the sufferers because their activities are the only ones under scrutiny. But then again, if we criminalize one infectious illness, we should criminalize all other infectious illnesses as well, and I don’t see that happening. Anyone looking for a story with stigma, scapegoating, paranoia and double standards should look no further.

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